Chronic diseases often lead to depression, withdrawal, mood disturbances, diminished quality of life and a weakening of the “fighting spirit” in a patient. Such comorbidities often further compromise overall health, affecting medical treatments and escalating care costs for chronic diseases. Current interventions employed for these comorbidities include counseling, physical, and pharmacological therapies. Example diseases include cancer, cystic fibrosis, stroke, epilepsy, neuropathic pain, Parkinson's disease, or multiple sclerosis. As an example, the prevalence of depression in cancer patients alone is over 10%.
The depression is combined with the physical de-conditioning and generalized weakness that results from the physical effects of the disease, and possibly the therapy used to treat the disease. Hospitalization may also lead to a diminished physical strength that can affect the body's innate ability to fight a disease. Although physical exercise is known to improve the immune system response, patients lacking a motivation to exercise in a consistent manner may compromise their body's innate ability to fight the disease.
Health-promoting interactive technologies provide opportunities for patient self-education, with the goal of improving patient understanding of symptoms and medications, which in turn promotes improved patient disease management. Currently, there are two major categories of health-related interactive games: sedentary and activity-promoting video games.
Sedentary video games, such as Packy & Malone and Re-Mission, focus on educating patients regarding a specific health condition by merging lessons and quizzes with puzzles and plots. In Packy & Malone, a diabetic patient learns to manage his/her diabetes by maintaining the protagonist's blood sugar within a healthy range through proper insulin use and diet, while playing towards the ultimate goal of saving a summer camp from the destruction of rodents. Re-Mission, introduced in 2006 by HopeLab, was designed to empower cancer patients by manipulating an on-screen microscopic robot to destroy cancer cells, while simultaneously educating patients about cancer and management of chemotherapy-related side effects. Two randomized, multi-center trials have demonstrated efficacy of Re-Mission in educating cancer patients and in improving adherence to chemotherapy treatments.
Commercially available activity-promoting video games, or “exergames,” that employ gaming console systems such as Wii, XBOX or PlayStation, have been utilized for clinical purposes. For example, while “Dance Dance Revolution” was not designed specifically to treat childhood obesity, it is an effective aerobic workout that promotes weight loss in childhood obesity. Similarly, Wii Boxing and Bowling have been effective in neuro-rehabilitation of adults with cerebral palsy and stroke. Therapeutic applications of existing video games were recently reviewed. However, activity-promoting interactive video games that are “customized” for patients with specific diseases have not yet been reported.